TASKREC: A task-based user interface for smart spaces

A smart space is a physical space such as a seminar room or a university campus that is richly and invisibly interwoven with sensors and actuators into everyday objects, and consists of connected devices. This space is often difficult to use and its capability is often invisible from users' awareness, especially for those who are unfamiliar with this space. The difficulty results from the overload of features/configurations offered by individual devices and their combinations while the invisibility comes from the blend of computational elements into the environment. This paper describes TaskRec, a new system that automatically generates a list of high-level tasks supported within a smart space based on user's location, surrounding devices, and user's pointing gestures. TaskRec may automatically execute or guide the user through the accomplishment of the selected task based on the corresponding task model. © 2011 ACM.